Some of my friends often joke "Crossing the roads in Vietnam is an art and the pedestrian is such an artist". Driving on the roads in Saigon is still in many ways challenging and threatening me as I have been growing up in this nice and busy city. In some levels, driving in the rush hours is really a physical and mental test over all the patience, persistence and skills to almost the drivers. One day, I drove my friend around district 5 and 10 at the time when people started knocking off for home. He was hit by all the smokes from motorbikes, cars and buses. What did really strike me is in which ways it can help to decline the traffic congestion in order to create healthy spaces for all people on the roads.

THE RACE ON THE ROADS

The roads are now so packed with many people that I can not even find the space to move ahead. As soon as there can be a little space somewhere on the roads, very sooner or later it would be occupied by a bunch of ones who are trying to push forward from behind. At the traffic cross, people even take up the space beyond the crossing lines to right after the police's stand. They don't care lots where there are the traffic limits. I am also pushed to the positions where it must be. Now the roads noticed for me have become a high-competition race track where people see themselves as racers who try to take up beyond the "others" as much as possible. What really struck me is which keeps people driving harshly on the roads in the ways of pushing ourselves ahead of the others. Somewhere in the question may help us to underly which causes the traffic congestion even worse despite all the controlling efforts/ declining solutions.

WHAT NOT SEEN? OPENING UP "THE ONION" TO SEE WHICH LEADS TO THE CONGESTION INCREASE.

Under the latest report of the municipal department of traffic safety, the traffic accidents go up by 4.63 % in 2006 compared to 2005. The "black" spots of congestion such as Nguyen Tri Phuong street, 3/2 street, Nguyen Kiem street, etc. are getting worse. What people normally see as the reasons of the issue is the focus on the traffic infrastructure, the increase in vehicles ownership and the lack of people's "awareness". However, what is noticed is that even in the big cities, where there is a certain level of traffic structure development such as Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Kuala Lumpur that I visited, the congestion is still a big concern to people.

Some days ago, I was talking with my Singaporean friend - Sheila as she is running a series of workshops on Learning Organization in Asia and Africa - a part of the workshop is on system thinking. I have shared my concern about the traffic issues in Vietnam, particularly on the congestion and traffic accidents. The traffic pattern obviously noticed in Saigon and Vietnam is the continuous increase of those in spite of all the strict enforcements by patrolling, fines, etc. What I feel very curious about is which part of the whole system on congestion that we are not seeing and that whatever we try to do, the problems are not going away. It is so interesting as Sheila forwarded me the congestion systemic structure (the above picture or see more in the below links) that she has worked on since 2006. The part which is surfaced to me is that the self-esteem-related emotions have framed people into "I am not good enough so there are still a lot that I need to do". That is what make us to set more targets to go and rush in life. Noticing here the fears of failure, rejection and in a certain level of survival.

As soon as we can see the parts of the system, now the question is which can help to do it better with the congestion? Please feel free to drop here all your thoughts/ reactions about the structure and which the leverages are to you.

Tuan Anh - 11 Sep., 2007

For the kindness of Sheila

Some useful links:
1. Case-study on Road Congestion
http://lopn.net/ST_Casestudy14_RoadCongestions.html

2. Answer.com on Traffic Congestion
http://www.answers.com/topic/traffic-congestion

3. Traffic Accidents in Ho Chi Minh City
http://www.nld.com.vn/tintuc/chinh-tri-xa-hoi/186692.asp

4. Traffic Congestion Increasing Dramatically
http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=219823&ChannelID=3

5. See the full article and the systemic structure on the blog
http://www.360.yahoo.com/nguyentuananhftu